Welcome back friends and future patrons! :) I'm slowly getting back into my hobby grove, so didn't quite make my normal wednesday post, but made it to thursday! This week I actually painted some, and got to work on an old project I've been dragging my feet on. Macathu's remaining wraiths/canoptek spyder. I previously painted a group of them using my brush skills...this time Macathu asked if I could use the airbrush!

Ebay special wraiths (one decently painted), and a metal spyder!

Though Macathu appeciates how I obsess over detail, he made sure to tell me "block in the colors with that glowy effect". So I set out a plan to use the same purples, but over a zenithal style highlight...well, more like me adding interest with grey primer!

So simple enough to start out with. I airbrushed the cream colored carapaces black with vallejo black primer.

I only kinda of know what I'm doing.

This also reminded my why I hate painting metal. There is so many coats of primer on that spyder, because everytime I'd put one on, I'd immediately chip it. I mean come on little guy, stop trying to escape your destiny!

Weeeee I love the airbrush!

| then angled the airbrush with grey primer to hit up the raised areas to exaggerate the surfaces, and create little gradients, so when the purple paint was laid over top, it would look more interesting then when I just plopped the purple paint on. (sorry that's "el plop, with style!"). I also fired the primer through the airbrush without thinning it, so I was rewarded with a continuously clogging airbrush needle.

The purple is working!!!

Then it was the fun time! I got out my liche purple from GW, and poured it into one of my jello shot cups. Oh boy is that stuff thick! I used about 50/50 airbrush medium to liche purple, until it finally swirled around...it made it extremely thin, which was SUPER AWESOME!!!! I was so excited when I put it over and it just beautifully worked with the under layer. I got so excited I snapped a photo with my cell phone.

I have almost zero airbrush skill, so it's really nice when the idea works right :)

Overspray doesn't really matter much at this point, as I'm mainly just concerned with the carapace sections. I'll go back later with brush and clean up the metallics, and add the glowy green bits (tm). But that's just the silly cell phone photo in my garage. Lets put them in the magic box!

I'm really happy with how they look, especially considering the time this took, vs the time it took to do the last three with just a smooth purple coat. I really like how this purple looks...I'm going to say because its more dye then paint at this point! Next I'll seal these guys and experiment with some lighter purples to add more interest, then hit them with those lovely metallics! It's funny that this post is kinda of short, when it still took hours of work to do all this!

Here is a quick snapshot of the last three I did for him. Already like the new purples so much more!

Hope you are all riding scatter laser je bikes into the sunset, on the back of thunderhawks! Have a great week guys!